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Sarah Ellen Blackwell (1828–1901) was an American author, biographer, and artist.
''A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland''
(1891) {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell, Sarah Ellen 1828 births 1901 deaths Blackwell family 19th-century American women writers 19th-century American women artists American letter writers Women letter writers 19th-century American biographers American women biographers Philadelphia School of Design for Women alumni Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century
Sarah Ellen Blackwell (1828–1901) was an American author, biographer, and artist.
Early years and education
Sarah Ellen Blackwell was the youngest daughter of Hannah (Lane) Blackwell and Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner and lay preacher. She was born in Bristol, England, and her family emigrated to the United States four years later, eventually settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father died when she was a child, and she was educated in part by her older sisters, the physiciansElizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Ki ...
and Emily Blackwell
Emily Blackwell (October 8, 1826 – September 7, 1910) was the second woman to earn a medical degree at what is now Case Western Reserve University, after Nancy Talbot Clark. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
...
. Other siblings included the abolitionist Samuel Charles Blackwell
Samuel Charles Blackwell (1823–1901) was an Anglo-American abolitionist.
Biography
Blackwell was born in England, the son of Bristol sugar refiner Samuel Blackwell (c. 1790–August 7, 1838) and Hannah Lane, who moved their family of eight chil ...
, the social reformer Henry Browne Blackwell
Henry Browne Blackwell (May 4, 1825 – September 7, 1909), was an American advocate for social and economic reform. He was one of the founders of the Republican Party and the American Woman Suffrage Association. He published '' Woman's Jou ...
, and the writer, Anna Blackwell
Anna Blackwell (pseudonym, Fidelitas; 21 June 1816 – 4 January 1900) was a British writer, journalist, and translator who focused on spiritual and social issues. She had a long and successful career as Parisian correspondent of leading colonial ...
.
Blackwell was interested in the arts, and around 1850 she began studying art at the newly opened Philadelphia School of Design for Women
Philadelphia School of Design for Women (1848–1932) was an art school for women in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Housed in the former Edwin Forrest House at 1346 North Broad Street, under the directorship of Emily Sartain (1886–1920), ...
; she also took classes in New York. In 1855, she went to Europe to continue her training, studying design in Paris before moving on to study painting in London with John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
. She funded her trip in part by writing weekly letters for two Philadelphia newspapers, an opportunity that opened up after one of her stories won a prize in a magazine contest.
Career
On her return to New York after four years in Europe, she opened a studio and began teaching painting and drawing. She eventually closed this studio in order to work with her physician sisters, though she continued to write for magazines and newspapers. She published a series of letters about Anna Ella Carroll, whose role as an adviser toPresident Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
's cabinet during the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
was being much discussed at the time by feminists. In 1891, she published the first full-length biography of Carroll, the well-researched but partisan ''A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll''. More recent biographies and analyses generally take a more moderate view of Carroll's accomplishments than Blackwell did.
Blackwell was active in the anti-vivisection movement.
She died in 1901, and many of her letters are held among the Blackwell family papers at Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
's Schlesinger Library
The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, ...
.
Family
Blackwell raised three adopted children on her own — Cornelia, Paul, and Susie — and often looked after Anna, Emily's adopted daughter.References
Further reading
*Blackwell, Sarah Ellen''A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland''
(1891) {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell, Sarah Ellen 1828 births 1901 deaths Blackwell family 19th-century American women writers 19th-century American women artists American letter writers Women letter writers 19th-century American biographers American women biographers Philadelphia School of Design for Women alumni Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century